Acid Lullaby (16 page)

‘All
I
need,’
said
Max,
blinking
away
the
strange
colours
that
swam
across
his
field
of
vision,
‘is
understanding.’
Max
had
a
bottle
of
his
elixir
in
the
pocket
of
his
soiled
jogging
bottoms.
‘I
can
make
you
understand
but
you
won’t
like
it.
Memory
is
knowledge.
I
can
help
you
make
the
transition.
Then
you’ll
see
for
yourself.’

Robin
saw
an
opportunity.
‘Max,
if
it’s
understanding
that
you
want,
I
have
a
friend
who
can
help
you.
’

Max
turned
his
back
on
his
father
and
stooped
to
retrieve
his
Rubik’s
Cube
from
the
fireplace.

‘Did
you
ever
meet
Jack
Harvey?’
Robin
continued.
‘He’s
a
police
psychiatrist.
He
works
in
Huntingdon.’

Max
laughed
hysterically.
‘A
policeman!
That’s
fantastic.
What’s
he
going
to
do?
Wheelclamp
my
cerebellum?’

‘He’s
a
psychiatrist.
A
very
good
one.
He
helped
me
after
your
mother
died.
Maybe
he
could
understand
you
–
what
you
are
becoming
–
better
than
me.’

Max
went
quiet
for
a
second.

Perhaps
this
policeman
was
Brihaspati,
the
sage
of
the
gods.
Perhaps
he
could
be
a
mouthpiece,
translate
the
teach
ings
of
the
Soma
into
a
language
mortals
could
understand,
refract
the
divine
light
into
some
sort
of
obvious
fucking
rainbow.

‘Okay,
I’ll
see
him.’

Robin
Fallon
was
relieved.
‘I’ll
arrange
it.
Jack
isn’t
supposed
to
do
private
consultations
but
I’ll
sort
something
out.’

‘Chequebook
psychiatry.
That’s
a
fucking
riot!’
Max
was
laughing
again.

‘Believe
what
you
want.’

Max
watched
as
the
lights
danced
away
from
his
father’s
face
and
the
turquoise
clouds
began
to
dissipate.

‘
Here
endeth
the
lesson,’
he
shouted
as
his
father
left
the
room.

Max stopped the playback in his mind. It was disturbing him now. He knew that he no longer had to deal with such contempt masquerading as paternal concern. Pain was surging up behind his eyes like a building electrical charge. He looked around the derelict room and wondered whom he had been talking to. He couldn’t see anybody. He lifted Jack Harvey’s head from his lap and considered it for a moment. The sage of the gods had disappointed him. Fallon blinked in discomfort. The lights had become more aggressive, more persistent. The memory of his father’s visit had awoken them. They had started to assume forms. There were terrible shapes and demons. He tried to swat them away as they ghosted across his field of vision. He sank to the floor as they nibbled at his head. They were the Assura: demons bent on sucking him dry of the divine Soma juice. Harvey’s head fell to the floor with a dull thud.

Max sank to his knees and then rolled in agony on the dusty floor of the library as they tore holes in his head and swam into his throat and down into his stomach. The pain was everywhere. He shuddered and retched as he felt the demons laying eggs under his skin; as they writhed and stung at his stomach like a bellyful of electric eels. His skin bubbled and itched as the eggs hatched and the larvae scratched and wriggled through his flesh, feeding on the blood of the Soma. The fluid would make them immortal. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to fight them now before they became too powerful.

Max screamed and bellowed in fury, trying to tear the irritations from his body. Suddenly, the demons were gone
and the lights retreated to the edge of his field of vision. He began to relax. He would piss the eels out of his system later.

Max collapsed into an armchair and waited for dawn.

2nd May

Alison Dexter was working at her desk by 7a.m. The night had been long and tortuous. She was glad when it was over. She wanted to fill her head with information to blot out the memory. She read through Ian Stark’s papers, his diary and his mobile phone bills. Dexter justified this by reminding herself that Stark had been murdered and that checking through his records was a legitimate investigative procedure. However, the more time she spent, the more she came to focus on Mark Willis’s phone number. The same way she had stared at her mobile phone for six months of her life waiting for the same number to appear.

Mark Willis was a blister on her soul that stung. In her mind, she had tried to turn him into an abstraction: an example of what can happen when you let your guard down. Now he had become a reality again. She had to get a clearer understanding of his relationship with Stark, figure out exactly why he had come to New Bolden. That was another legitimate investigative procedure, she told herself.

Dexter picked up her phone and called the number of CID at Leyton Police Station in East London. She knew the number well. She’d been on the other end of it for three years.

‘McInally,’ grunted a hard London voice.

‘Early start, Guv?’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Alison Dexter.’

There was a brief pause as Chief Inspector Paddy
McInally absorbed the information. ‘Fuck me!’ he boomed eventually.

‘I don’t do charity work.’

‘Sexy Dexy! I don’t believe it.’

‘Don’t call me that, please.’

‘How’s life up in bandit country?’

‘The usual. Cattle rustling, sheep shagging, ritual decapitations.’ Dexter smiled. Her old boss had a curious knack for cheering her up.

‘Read about that,’ McInally observed. ‘Nasty. Some junkie?’

‘It’s early days, guv,’ Dexter replied.

McInally laughed out loud. ‘In other words, you haven’t got a Scooby!’

‘Learned from the master, didn’t I?’

‘You are a cheeky bastard!’ McInally’s voice softened. ‘Ah. We miss you, Dexy. When are you coming back to civilization?’

‘No time soon.’

‘That’s a crying shame.’

‘Guv. I need some information. You could be the man.’

‘Ask the oracle.’

Dexter took a deep breath. ‘Mark Willis.’

‘Go on.’ The humour had gone from McInally’s voice. Willis was a running sore for him too.

‘I’ve heard a whisper up here that Ian Stark – the first murder victim – was mixed up with Willis. Drug shit. I’m trying to tie up some loose ends.’ It was only a slight lie.

McInally slurped some coffee. ‘You sure that’s all? I’m not a dating agency.’

‘Do me a favour, guv. He’s nothing to me.’ That was a bigger lie. Whenever Willis became entangled in her life, Dexter always found herself becoming entangled in deceit.

‘Mark Willis,’ McInally sighed. ‘Why won’t that name just go away?’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Well, Alison, he’s become the professional toe rag that he always showed the potential to be. Willis has become quite a big fish since you went rural.’

‘How so?’

‘Pills. Ecstasy. Smack. You name it. He’s made some heavy-duty connections in London and overseas. He supplies drugs in bulk to club pushers. We’re talking big numbers. All over the East End and into Essex and Kent. At least until recently.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Dexter was making notes.

‘Dexy, I like you and I trust you. This goes no further. Right?’

‘Understood.’

‘Willis is in trouble and has gone AWOL.’

Dexter bit her lip anxiously. It bled slightly.

‘You heard of the Moules?’ McInally continued.

‘Of course. Casinos and shit?’

‘Casinos, money laundering. The list’s as long as the Romford Road.’

‘And Willis is involved.’

McInally snorted. ‘You could say that. He owes them. Owes them big apparently. Word is up to a hundred thousand.’

‘Jesus.’

‘He always liked to talk the big game. Well, it’s blown up in his face large style. Gambling debts.’

‘Idiot.’

‘Dexy, I’d crucify that bastard with blunt nails for what he’s done. But even I wouldn’t wish Eric Moule on him.’

Dexter agreed. ‘Nasty.’

‘That may be the understatement of the new century.’ McInally was beginning to sense that Dexter wasn’t playing entirely straight. ‘Alison, if that wanker turns up on your patch I want to know about it. I need to have a long, intimate chat with him about a number of issues.’

‘You’ll be the first to know, guv.’

‘Come home soon, Dexy,’ McInally shouted. ‘There’s a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich waiting here for you.’

‘You’re a gentleman.’

‘Only where you’re concerned.’

Dexter put the phone down. She felt herself welling up with tears. Only Paddy McInally could make her nostalgic for Leyton High Street. She looked up and noticed Underwood was standing in her doorway.

‘You okay, tiger?’ he asked uncomfortably.

‘Fine.’ Dexter was surprised to see him and checked her watch. ‘I thought I was picking you up at eight?’

‘Couldn’t sleep.’

Dexter suddenly looked very small in her chair. ‘Sleep would be nice,’ she said quietly.

‘Do you want to hear about these coins, then?’ Underwood entered the room.

‘Coins?’

‘The coins found on Stark, Harvey and in Jensen’s car.’

Dexter remembered. ‘Sorry, I’m being dense. Three ten-pence coins on Stark, three found next to Jack and two on Jensen’s car seat.’

‘The killer’s signature.’

‘Calm down, John!’ Dexter reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. ‘I’ve got six tens and twenty here. No ones chopped my head off. Could be just coincidence.’

‘You said yesterday that you don’t believe in coincidence.’

Dexter sighed. Underwood’s memory was full of trivial detail and irrelevancies in the places where police procedure and details of the criminal law should have been. ‘Go on then,’ she said, ‘let’s have it.’

‘It’s not coincidence. Jack is murdered and decapitated. We find three ten-pence pieces next to his body.’

‘Why is that so significant?’

‘Look at a ten-pence coin,’ Underwood gestured at the pile of change Dexter had place on her desk. ‘What do you see?’

Dexter saw what he was driving at. ‘The queen’s head. Isn’t that a bit bleeding obvious, though?’

Underwood crossed round to Dexter’s side of the table. ‘Let’s say you were a murderer with a real hard-on for chopping people’s heads off.’

‘Hard to imagine that, but I’ll try.’

‘Let’s also say that you were collecting a specific number of heads for some fucked-up reason.’

Dexter smiled thinly. Underwood had a peculiar way of expressing himself.

‘Hypothetically, three heads,’ he continued.

‘Go on.’

Underwood arranged three of Dexter’s coins in a straight line on the table. ‘So you need three heads. Three heads equals three coins. We found three coins by Jack Harvey. Next, you need two heads.’ He removed one of the coins. ‘Two heads equals two coins. We find two coins on the driver’s seat of Jensen’s car. On the next victim, we’ll find a single coin. I guarantee it. It’s a countdown.’

Dexter pulled at her short black hair, as if trying to straighten out the kinks in Underwood’s logic. ‘What about Ian Stark? We found three coins on him. He still had his head.’

‘True but there were severe injuries to his neck. Maybe the killer tried to decapitate him but was interrupted or bottled it and forgot about the coins.’

Dexter’s eyes never left the coins in front of her. ‘Then there’s Rowena Harvey. Why not leave a coin for her?’

Underwood frowned. ‘The killer took a photograph of Rowena Harvey from Jack’s office. I don’t think he plans to kill her. Not yet anyway.’

‘Why does he want her, then?’

Underwood didn’t want to think about that.

Dexter didn’t seem convinced. ‘I’ll get my jacket. Let’s go meet the mushroom man.’

Underwood nodded his acknowledgement as Dexter left the room. He stared at the coins intently. He replaced the third ten-pence piece and arranged the coins in a row, aligned left to right across the desk.